Pro Tour–Berlin Round 10: When Two Tribes Go to War

Tim Willoughby

Rich Hoaen vs. Johan Sadeghpour

Rich Hoaen faces a real head-scratcher....

Both Johan Sadeghpour and Rich Hoaen are best known for their skills with 40-card decks, but for Pro Tour–Berlin they have each found themselves a 60-card deck that they like and run with it. Johan Sadeghpour is the lone Goblins player here on Saturday, reveling in the fact that Elves! is doing as well as it is. Meanwhile Rich has a similar Faeries deck to Gadiel Szleifer (a Gerry Thompson creation that has served both of them very well thus far), and is loving playing turn-one Dark Confidant for fun and profit.

Game 1

Johan won the roll and had a mulligan before playing Bloodstained Mire into Stomping Ground, a card and 3 life down before playing a spell. His first-turn monster was a Goblin Sledder, who was able to get stuck in unmolested as Rich didn't have any turn-one play beyond a fetch land. Johan was a little mana-light, playing a Chrome Mox but no land on turn two. He had a Mogg War Marshal, and passed.

"Not here yet," smirked Hoaen, who would be in great shape should the legendary equipment make an appearance.

On 10 life, Rich played Dark Confidant. The Wizard was always going to be a chump blocker, and Rich stemmed the tide by trading with most of Johan's team, and following up with Engineered Explosives to finish the job.

By the time that Rich had three lands for an end-of-turn Thirst For Knowledge, Hoaen was on just 10. He dropped to 8 on attacks, but had a Mistbind Clique to champion his Bitterblossom and effectively end Johan's turn.